


Childhood memories

by umbrafix



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Because it was a long time ago, Five doesn't really remember their childhood, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Klaus can fix that!, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:53:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27138970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/umbrafix/pseuds/umbrafix
Summary: Sometimes, Five admits to himself that he doesn’t know how many of the memories he has from his childhood are real.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Everyone
Comments: 5
Kudos: 97





	Childhood memories

Sometimes, Five admits to himself that he doesn’t know how many of the memories he has from his childhood are real. Some things left sharp, glittering impressions that haven’t faded, but most of those were directly related to Reginald Hargreeves. His siblings though… During his years in the wasteland, Five had turned over and over every interaction he could remember with them. He’d fantasized about how things could have gone differently in their childhood, or imaginary conversations they could have had when he was fifteen or twenty or thirty if he had never jumped in time or if they had been alive when he found them, not dead. He’d conjured new images of them after he read Vanya’s book _again and again and again_ , but they were just shadows without substance. By the time he had started working for the Commission, he couldn’t remember their faces, not really, or what their voices had sounded like, or anything except the memories of imaginings he’d had over the years.

None of them are how he remembers them. All of them are disappointing. All of them are heartbreakingly real.

“Hey,” Diego said, “Remember when Klaus told Luther that he could catch a sexually transmitted disease if he ate anything that hadn’t been coated with soap? And Luther believed him? Oh god, do you remember him spitting out soap after the apples?”

“Sure,” Five said with a tight smile.

And

“Oh my god,” Vanya gasped, “I always knew you did that on purpose. I can’t believe dad let you get away with that.”

Allison grinned smugly, and rasped, “Worth the risk.”

“Five, back me up here, that was not cool, right? You remember what happened when-”

Five flapped a hand and refused to look up from his book. “Don’t involve me in your squabbles.”

And

“I still can’t believe that he… I just. I mean, I know, but…” Five waited for Luther to get to the point. There was a deep sigh, then, “You remember how he used to straighten the shoulders of our uniforms when we were little? And one week when we’d done it right ourselves he said _well done team_. I still remember that, that well done.” The wistfulness in Luther’s voice was irritating, but the fact that he remembered it happening at all was more irritating. “You remember that, right?

“Not really,” Five said coolly, and watched Luther deflate in disappointment. Different people remembered different things anyway, he told himself. Even if he hadn’t been stuck in the apocalypse for forty years, there was no guarantee he would have remembered any of the same incidents as his brothers and sisters.

And

“Do you remember that miniskirt I used to have?” asked Klaus.

“Yes,” answered Five automatically, before he squinted and second guessed himself. Was that a real memory, or just something his mind had invented? “It had buttons down one side,” he said, more of a question than a statement.

“Exactly,” Klaus said delightedly. “I’m glad that your recognition of my teenage sartorial genius lasted all these years.”

Five didn’t remember anything else though, just the snapshot of the skirt that flashed before his eyes when Klaus mentioned it. “You got in trouble with the old man about it,” he said confidently, an easy guess because that _was_ a constant of their childhood – Reginald Hargreeves being irritated at and disappointed in Klaus.

There was the slightest pause.

“Not about that I didn’t,” Klaus said merrily, as though his hesitation hadn’t broadcast that Five had been caught in his bluff. “Okay, so, Allison had a dearth of fun skirts in her closet, because of course we were barely allowed out of uniform, and I thought that really needed to be remedied. So I-“

The story lasted half an hour, mainly because it veered through several tangents of 90’s fashion, what idiots their siblings were, and occasional casual mentions of ‘Klaus’s shitty life decisions, yes, thank you Ben, enough from the peanut gallery’ that made Five want to go out and kill people. Five featured prominently in the story, and it was disconcerting having his twelve year old self recreated through Klaus’s eyes.

At the end of it, as Klaus wandered off saying he needed to rummage through Allison’s nail varnish to find ‘that exact shade of purple,’ Five fixed the story in his mind and said to himself: this is true. This happened.

And

“Do you remember the first time Klaus wore that miniskirt when we were kids?” Five said casually as they stood together in the courtyard cupping chilled hands around warm mugs.

Vanya laughed, Diego pulled a disgusted face, and Luther looked slightly constipated. “I don’t remember that?” Allison said, expression bright but voice still carefully quiet. “When was that?”

“The time with the purple nail varnish,” Five said easily, and watched the memory slide into place for her.

“Ooooh,” she said. “I missed most of that. I’d forgotten.”

From across the ring they stood in, Klaus smiled at him and Five allowed himself to feel warm.


End file.
